Page 96 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
I felt my cheeks blush.
He chuckled and kissed my hair. Earlier, I’d been worried about kissing on the job, but all of that flew out the window the second the gnomes’ eyes turned red as they attacked us.
I was pretty sure none of the others cared, and even if they did, they at least seemed to understand why we wanted to be close at the moment. But I was pretty sure they didn’t even notice. The kids probably assumed this was normal behavior for us, and Lyric was too focused on gaining their own strength back.
I leaned back into Win and let Sola fold herself up on my chest before sighing and ordering a bunch of pizzas—the boys could take those leftovers home too.
I sighed again when I finished, not wanting to move from this very comfy spot with Win wrapped around me. “We should probably get up and start cleaning. We have to set some traps before we leave too.”
Ugh. I was so not looking forward to spending more time in this damn house. But not only did I need to set traps, I also needed to come back in a few days to collect the traps and likely repeat the process quite a few times before I was able to catch all the gnomes since there were so many and this house was humongous.
“Why don’t we do that while we wait for the pizza to get here?” Win asked, still just… holding me. It made a warmth grow in my chest that was all comfort and affection and things I wasn’t used to. I sank further into him, soaking it up like I was a sponge that’d been left in the desert for decades. Who knew what I’d been missing all these years?
“Sounds like a plan.”
“We’ll help,” Aeson said, already beginning to pick up some of the things the ghosts had thrown at us.
“You don’t have to.”
“We don’t mind. I’d rather do something than sit here and watch you guys. I like helping.” That didn’t surprise me in the least, but when Chaos spoke, my eyebrows shot up.
“Same here.”
“Um, okay, great. Thanks, guys.” I—unfortunately—moved away from Winter, stood, and placed Sola on my shoulder, then helped Win to his feet.
“Thanks.” He pecked my lips with a grin, then joined Aeson and Chaos.
With all of us working together, it didn’t take long to set the basement to rights, and just as we were about to leave, Chaos said to me, “I want to show you something.”
“Okay.” I followed him over to the seal.
He traced his fingers along the concrete around the seal as he spoke. “They did a good job of blending it in. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been staring at it for so long.”
“Noticed what?”
He faced me. “The seal wasn’t built into the wall. At least not when the house was built. I can’t tell how new it is, but it looks like someone came in here and concreted the seal over the existing wall and blended the concrete in to make it look like it’s always been there. I think they rubbed dirt all over it or something to hide the seam. Look.” He pointed at the concrete, so I stepped closer with a frown.
He was right. If you looked closely, you could see a seam all the way around the seal, about twelve inches out. Huh. So maybe the new homeowner hadn’t inherited a curse. Maybe someone had done it to her specifically.
Hadn’t she mentioned having family problems with the inheritance after her father died?
“Good catch, Chaos. Thank you. I’ll let the homeowner know so she can figure out who did it and hopefully prevent it from happening again.”
He nodded, shot me a half-smile, and turned to join the others near the door.
Winter walked over, so I pointed out the seam to him, and he hummed, kissed my temple, gave Sola a pet, and gently tugged me away. I easily followed him out of the basement and was surprised to find Lyric walking back toward the cellar door, carrying a few gnome traps.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked.
They grinned at me. “Setting a few traps down there and filling that big hole in the ceiling with steel wool.”
I blinked. “Oh. Thank you. I can do it if—”
They cut me off with a laugh. “It’s fine, Miles. This is what I actually signed up for, right? Win taught me some stuff over the years. I’ve helped him on side jobs before. I can handle it.” I had no doubt they could.
“Thank you.”
They winked at me and carried on down to the basement. It felt weird letting someone go down there alone, but I knew it’d be okay without the curse running rampant… I just had to keep reminding my nerves of that.
